[quote=Clarky21;6962788]I swear it's like some of you people just started watching tennis yesterday. People have ALWAYS gone after Nadal's backhand. Always. ******* did not discover a thing that Nalby and Davy didn't figure out years ago.

And I highly doubt a player as good as Fed would take 8 years to figure out to hit to Nadal's backhand. That is just sheer lunacy.[/

I think the real matchup problem is Nadal moves so well to his fh side that it takes away Feds favorite shot the inside out fh. He has to work much hard to win a point without that shot.

Then if hitting to Nadal's backhand is all he has to do,why doesn't he do it in every single match they play? He's definitely got the ability to do it yet he doesn't.

I don't know, you tell me? You dismissed me as being some blind idiot. I know from reading parts of Nadal's book that his plan is simple - hit to Fed's backhand with alot of Topspin "even if it takes 23 shots to win the point".

The biggest reason he doesn't repeat this is because he doesn't have enough strength to get out of the FH/BH exchange once he starts to hit it; DTL with enough spin over the high part of the net is a very difficult shot but that is what made Novak so successful last year against Rafa.

WTF 2011 was definitely a better match for Fed. Not only the scoreline, in WTF he only produced 8 UEs as opposed to 20+ in IW.'

Notice how Fed now constantly uses heave top spin towards Rafa's BH, sort of like looping it and kicking it off the court. However he hits it dead flat to Rafa's FH. It sort of matches Fed's playing style, i.e. flat inside-outs and heavy top-spin inside-ins. Rafa likes to push insane angles with the BH so he probably couldn't do that easily with the topspin. And plus it's harder for him to moonball when the ball's coming dead fast down to your FH.

Makes sense. NOte that Nadal's forehand has massive topspin while his backhand is much flatter in general. Such shots deal with similar shots well i.e. flat balls to the backhand, loopy ones to the forehand. Mixing it up with pace to the forehand and high balls to the backhand is how Nadal is exposed.

IN addition, it is more convenient to go for a flat shot crosscourt assuming he takes it early or gets a shortish ball, and a high backhand is much harder to hit with any bite crosscourt.